Just a Little Sick: Challenge Response to Pii
by Squirrel Stone
Summary: When Danny gets sick, Maddie discovers it's life-threatening. But is there more to this sickness than meets the eye? Will it even explain Danny's unusual behavior?
1. Specter Deflector

I don't own DP.

This is a oneshot challenge response to Pii. Now read. Please?

* * *

Danny had been sick the past week.

He looked a bit nervous when we put the new Specter Deflector on him, but he didn't get sick until the next day, eliminating any possible suspicions I could have had about the belt causing him to get sick.

But I was wrong…

* * *

"Danny, I'm back!" I called after getting home from the store. I felt bad about leaving him, even for five minutes, but I _did _need to go to the grocery store.

"Hi, mom," Danny said weakly, coming down the stairs.

"Danny, what are you doing out of bed?" I asked. "You need to rest."

Quickly changing the subject, he said, "The doctor called while you were gone."

"Okay," I replied. "You can tell me about it… once you get back into bed." I set down the groceries and helped him up the purple carpeted stairs back to his room. "Now what did the doctor say?" I asked once he was back in bed.

"I-I didn't hear," Danny explained, coughing violently. "I couldn't get down the stairs in time."

"I'll go check it," I said, tucking him into bed and leaving to go to the kitchen and check the messages on the phone.

"_Hello, Mrs. Fenton,"_ the doctor's voice said over the phone, _"I'm calling in regards to Daniel Fenton, your son. I'm sorry, but I couldn't find what was wrong with him, but… he's dying, ma'am."_ The phone went to its message explaining that there were no more messages as I tried to pull myself out of shock. Finally, what I thought was an hour later (though in reality, it was probably less than a second) I snapped out of it when I heard something crash in the living room.

I ran to said room and saw Danny lying on the floor, groaning in pain. I ran to him, picked him up, and set him down on the couch. He probably heard what the doctor said and lost his footing when he was surprised. Unless… he already knew. I didn't know what it was, but Danny had seemed all too calm about being sick. I had passed it off as just him being tired and sick, but now… I wasn't quite sure _what_ to think.

Suddenly, without thinking, I asked, "How long have you known you were dying?"

Danny had given up with his lies. "I think the better question is: How long have I been dead?" The question shocked me, but it made sense, almost. I hardly ever saw him eat anymore, he seemed to be emotionless lately, and he looked always looked scared around any ghost weapons. All of those would be something a ghost would do.

Ignoring my scientific side, I searched for the key to the Specter Deflector and finally found it, quickly unlocking it from Danny's waist. He looked better immediately and tried to sit up, though I put my hand on his shoulder and gently pushed him back down.

"Let me go, Mom," he ordered calmly. "We both know that ghosts are stronger than humans, and I need to leave to-"

I cut him off. "When _did_ you die?"

Danny swallowed nervously and allowed himself to lie back down on the couch. "Seven months," he said. "The portal… when I turned it on… it killed me."

I killed my own son.

"No you didn't," Danny said.

"D-did you just read my mind?" I asked.

"No," he replied. "I'm just very observant, thanks to Clockwork."

"Who?"

"A friend of mine," Danny explained. He closed his eyes, almost tiredly. But ghosts didn't get tired. Then again, no ghost had ever worn the Specter Deflector, so it could stand to reason that he would be tired like any human would after illness.

"Did it hurt when you died?" I asked.

Then, as if he had rehearsed this moment or something similar, he said, "No." Nothing more, nothing less. Just… no.

"Are you lying?" I countered.

"No," Danny persisted.

I sighed, being forced to accept his answer until I could run a ghost lie-detector test on him (once I got rid of the painful shocks that came with lying).

"Why didn't you-"

Now he cut me off. "You and Dad are ghost hunters. I'm a ghost. I put two and two together and figured you'd destroy me."

Now I felt guilty, yet somewhat hurt. "We'd never hurt you, Danny," I explained. "You should have known that. But… why didn't you go to the Ghost Zone?"

"That's… a long story," Danny replied. "To put it simply, if the portal wasn't started up by me, a lot of ghosts wouldn't be free. It's my responsibility to stop them from hurting anyone."

"That's a lot of responsibility for a kid, even a dead one," I said. Danny didn't respond. Motherly instinct told me he was asleep. I picked him up and carried him back to his room, noticing his ice cold skin for the first time. He really was dead.

* * *

Jack got home around two hours later, and I had just come down the stairs from checking on Danny. "Hi, honey," I said.

"How's Danny?" he asked.

"Oh, uh… Danny's fine… in a manner of speaking," I said. "Jack… Danny died in the lab accident in September."

"What?" Jack asked in confusion. "That's impossible."

"He said so himself," I replied. "And the Specter Deflector was what was making him sick. Once I took it off, he got better. He's dead. And apparently his ghostly obsession is protecting the town from other ghosts."

"That would explain why he hardly eats anymore," Jack vocalized my previous thoughts.

"He agreed to answer any questions we have tomorrow," I explained. "Right now, he's asleep."

"Ghosts can sleep?" Jack asked.

"Apparently," I responded. "Well, we'll find out more in the morning."

* * *

Ha! You probably thought I was gonna have Danny spill that he was Danny Phantom, but you were wrong! Mwahaha! Please review! If you do, you'll get Danny Phantom cookies. Seriously. I was supposed to double a recipe for home ec, and I accidentally tripled it. Oh well.


	2. Class D

I don't own DP. But I do feel loved with the reviews and alerts and favs.

Wolflover77: Glad you liked it.

Kigyptnee: This is completely in canon, but Danny is just lying to his parents.

Itsbeenasecret: Here's more. And a cookie… I might just use your idea. You'll have to read to find out! :P

Call Me Mad -Elf-: Ta-da! Second chapter! And thanks for the alert!

* * *

Chapter 2: Jack's POV

Almost a week had gone by since I found out my son was dead. He had explained that some ghosts eat and sleep on a regular basis, so that explained why he ate at all and went to bed every night. He had been helping us out with our inventions, and even helped us catch some ghosts. No one needed to know he was dead. Well, not yet, anyways.

I stared at my dead son's sleeping form, and he seemed almost human. Almost alive…

But he wasn't.

He couldn't be.

He was dead.

I slowly put my hand down on his still chest and jumped back in shock. His chest wasn't still at all. In fact, it was moving up and down in a rhythmic pattern, and getting faster, almost as if he were having a nightmare.

I put two fingers under his nose to find that there was air flowing in and out of his body. I fell back on the floor in surprise. My son wasn't dead. But that was impossible. The Specter Deflector hurt him. He _was_ dead.

But he was breathing. Ghosts didn't breathe, no ifs, ands, or buts about it. Why would he lie about being dead? But he couldn't be lying about that. We had proof that he was dead. But now I had proof he was alive, too.

My mind was way past spinning when I realized Danny was talking in his sleep. "I'll never be like you…" Danny mumbled. "No… stay away from them… STAY AWAY!" He screamed, as if in pain, and snapped awake, panting.

"Danny, calm down," I ordered softly. "Are you okay? What were you dreaming about?"

"Nothing," he lied back. "Just… just a bad dream…"

* * *

Later that day, I found myself chasing Danny Phantom. "Get back here, ghost punk!" I yelled, shooting my bazooka at him carelessly. Miraculously, one of my shots hit him square in the back, and he went down in an instant.

I got out of the GAV, picked him up and put him in the 'car', and drove back to Fenton Works.

I hooked the kid up to a lie detector test (now with no shocks because of my deceased son) and locked him into a chair.

I sat down calmly as he finally started to come to.

"Okay, start talking, Phantom," I ordered.

For once, he didn't object. He was being a bit rude just to spite me, but he wasn't objecting. "About what?" he asked. "There's a pretty big array of things to talk about, if you didn't know."

I looked at the still half-asleep Phantom, and I decided to give him an easy question to start with. "Why did you attack the mayor?"

He smirked at me and said, "Because I'm evil."

The lie detector let out a quick series of three beeps, indicating that he was lying. "Why'd you just lie and tell me that?" I asked. "You're only making this harder on yourself. It doesn't have the electric shock on it right now, but I can calibrate it back in a second."

"You won't," Phantom replied. The machine beeped once. He was telling the truth. How did he know what I would do before even I did? "And to answer your other question, I was being sarcastic. I didn't kidnap the mayor. If anything, the ghost overshadowing him kidnapped me."

One beep.

He let out a sigh of relief. He breathed, too. Had Maddie and I been wrong? Did all ghosts experience emotion? Or did only some? "Why do you breathe?"

Phantom swallowed nervously. "There are multiple classes of ghosts. Class A are the shapeless, thoughtless blobs you sometimes see.

"Class B are the kinds of ghosts usually attacking the town. They are driven by their obsessions and have very little emotion. If their obsession is taken from them, they move on.

"Class C ghosts are sort of like the kinds you see in shows like Ghost Whisperer. Only certain people can see them, and they either need help or are trapped in a time loop, forced to repeat their death over and over until they are somehow stopped. And even that is difficult. You can't just stick your arm out in front of them and stop them from falling off a building. They'll walk right through you. You'd have to do something like demolish the building. They usually have emotions."

One beep.

"Which kind are you?" I dared to ask.

"I'm not," he replied.

One beep.

"I'm a Class D. They breathe, have heartbeats, feel emotions… they're basically humans trapped in a ghost's body. There are very few in existence," he replied.

One beep.

"How many?"

"Th- four," Phantom said. "Me, my cousin, Vlad Plasmius, and your son."

Two beeps.

I looked at the machine in confusion. One beep meant the truth, and three beeps meant a lie. What on Earth could two beeps mean? "Do you know what that means?"

"No."

Three beeps.

Phantom's head fell. "It means I was telling a lie of omission."

"Is there anything else you're not telling me?" I asked. I got an idea and interrupted him before he could respond. "When did you first meet my son in your human form?" I asked.

"I haven't," he replied.

Three beeps.

"Dang it," he hissed angrily. "So much for that loop hole…"

"So when did you meet my son in his human form?" I asked again.

"Pretty early on in life," Phantom replied. "When we were about two or younger."

One beep.

I looked at him in complete confusion. Maddie and I kept Danny pretty much hidden from the world until he turned three. But he was telling the truth, so I went with it. "So… you met my son… when you were about… one?"

"Yes," Phantom replied immediately, hoping he was right.

I didn't even hear if it made one or three beeps. My mind was too busy putting the pieces together. They looked alike… the hair length, the voice, the body shape… No. It was impossible. "So what exactly _is_ a Class D ghost?" I asked.

"None of your business," Phantom replied.

Three beeps.

"If my son is a Class D ghost, it is my business!" I replied, allowing all of my anger to escape. I immediately regretted my decision, for Phantom stopped talking then. Did I scare him or something?

No. Ghosts don't get scared.

But he had said that Class D ghosts had emotions…

But Danny said that he didn't have any emotions left. And he was a Class D ghost. Right?

I chose to give Phantom some space, as well as me time to think, and left the basement.

When I got to the kitchen, I sat down at the table and rested my elbows on it. I buried my face in my hands, contemplating my situation.

"Hey, Dad," I heard my son, Danny, say as he came down the stairs. He went over to the stove and put his hand on the pot on a burner. "Ow!" he yelped, causing me to turn around in surprise. I saw a harsh burn on his left hand, confusing me. "Uh… I'll be back later, Dad," Danny said before disappearing in green light.

I sat there, staring at where he had been, thinking. Ghosts didn't burn. Not even this Class D Phantom was talking about. It was a physical impossibility. Which made me wonder…

I ran down the stairs to see Phantom.

"Hello," he said dully. Without a word, I grabbed the back of his jumpsuit and pulled it down. "Hey, what are you-" he objected, though he soon realized I was checking his back for the burn that came from when I shot him. "Believe it or not, ghosts do get hurt, Mr. Fenton," Phantom stated.

"It should have healed hours ago," I informed him.

"Class D ghosts-"

"If anything, given the information you've told me, Class D ghosts should heal faster than regular ghosts," I said. "Unless of course, Class D ghosts are just humans with ghost powers," I continued doubtfully.

Phantom refused to meet my eyes.

"Y-you're… human?" I asked.

More silence.

"But… you look like a ghost," I reasoned. "Unless…" I was hit by a sudden epiphany. "Class D ghosts are human with a ghost form."

Now my previous hypothesis came back to my mind. I slowly pulled off Phantom's left glove, and for some reason, he didn't object. I took in a sharp breath when I saw that Phantom had the exact same burn Danny did.

"Danny?" I asked.

"No, not quite," Phantom replied. "W-when humans become Class D ghosts, they get something similar to a witch's familiar to guide and protect them. If I get hurt, he gets hurt, and if he gets hurt, I get hurt."

The lie detector was still on, and I heard three beeps come from it. Phantom squeezed his eyes shut, knowing he had been caught.

"Danny," I said. "It's okay. Your mother and I will accept you no matter what."

Phantom's head fell, and before I knew what was happening, two bright white rings formed around him, one going up his body, the other going down. When they stopped, I saw my son.

I quickly unlatched the cuffs on the chair, freeing Danny. He stood and sheepishly looked me in the eye. "I guess I have some explaining to do," he said.

* * *

"Okay, so, how did you do that thing where you were still locked in the chair, but you were in the kitchen at the same time?" I asked Danny, who was sitting on the couch, a can of soda in his hand.

"It's a new power that I've been working on for about a year and a half," Danny explained. "My enemy, Vlad Plasmius, has had his powers for twenty years longer than me, and can control his duplicates and make God only knows how many at once. I have to get better, or he will eventually win. But now, I can usually just barely hold on to one, and the second the copy gets injured, he goes down. I was gonna have the other me go down to the basement and free me, but I touched the stove and burned my hand, as you just saw I've only been able to hold on to more than one copy twice: once when I was fighting Vortex, and once when I stole the ecto-skeleton to fight Pariah Dark."

"So you did fight that ghost all by yourself." It wasn't a question.

"I had some help from the other ghosts," Danny explained. "Plasmius and I were even reluctantly forced to work together to stop him."

Wait… Danny Phantom, Danny Fenton… Vlad Plasmius, Vlad… Masters? "Is Vlad Masters Vlad Plasmius?" I asked.

He looked up at me with sorry eyes, as if apologizing for the fact that I just found out my best friend was evil.

"The accident with the portal in college," I stated. Danny nodded. I sighed. I would deal with the fact that my- now former- best friend was evil later. "So… what's the most powerful ghost you've ever fought?"

Danny glanced at me quickly, fear in his eyes, but almost immediately turned back to the can in his hands. "Pariah Dark," he decided, swallowing nervously.

I knew my son well enough to know he was lying. I had tried to ignore his half-baked excuses for missing curfew and failing tests, but this was more serious. Was there really a ghost more powerful than Pariah Dark? "Danny, tell me the truth," I ordered calmly.

He closed his eyes in fear and horror.

"Danny…" I said. "Your mother and I need to know who the most powerful ghost you've fought is."

"Me," he whispered. "The most powerful ghost I've ever fought… is me." His breathing was now shaky and awkward, and I could see tears forming in his eyes. "Ten years in the future, though it's actually eight now, in an alternate timeline, I became evil. I fought him and trapped him forever, but every year on the day the change occurred, there is an opening. A chance for the change to occur. And there will be every year for eight more years. Most of my enemies try to take this opportunity and spin it in their favor, especially Vlad. But I can't let it happen." By now, Danny was flat out crying.

I hesitantly hugged my son. There would be time for more questions later, but right now… All that responsibility, all that fear… no wonder his grades were slipping and he was never on time for curfew. I made a mental note to step up ghost patrols with Maddie so Danny wasn't so busy.

"Dad, I'm home!" I heard Jazz yell. With all the insanity going on, I almost forgot she was coming home from college for the weekend. When she saw Danny crying, she asked, "Did he tell you about Dark Dan?"

I presumed this was the evil, alternate future Danny he had been talking about, so I nodded.

"He had nightmares for weeks afterwards, and still has them occasionally," Jazz explained.

"W-will you stop talking about me like I'm not in the room?" Danny asked.

"Sorry," I apologized. "You're gonna be okay, though," I assured him.

* * *

When Maddie got home, the three of us explained the entire story, and she practically fainted at the concept of hunting her own son.

"You didn't know," Danny said. "It's not your fault; I should have told you." A wisp of blue suddenly came out of his mouth. "Um… I'm gonna go call Sam and Tucker."

"Danny," Jazz scolded, and Danny rolled his eyes.

"Don't worry, Jazz, the power of my ghost sense has increased so I can tell how powerful the ghost is," Danny said. "I'm pretty sure it's just Johnny and Kitty disturbing the peace once again."

"Okay," Jazz said hesitantly. "But if I see you fighting Nocturne or something on the news, you're dead meat."

Danny transformed into his ghost form and flew out the ceiling. Who'd have thought? My son, the hero.

* * *

OMG! A twoshot! I was in English today, and my friend caught me watching Urban Jungle on my iTouch. She began singing the theme song. By the time we were done, we had ten people (one of them being the teacher) singing along. I now officially love school. Tomorrow I'm proposing that in order to review for the final exam, we correct grammar and spelling errors on DP fanfiction stories! Just kidding. I only wish. But I was watching DP on my iTouch, and my friend did see me and started singing the theme song. But everyone just looked at us like we were crazy. Please review!


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